Staying only a week in Son Bou at Son Bou Gardens apartments, booked with First Choice wasn't enough to enjoy this lovely place.

Son Bou is a very friendly and welcoming place to stay with a superb choice of restaurants, café’s and bars etc to choose from. Our apartment was in Son Bou Gardens zone 3, which was overlooking the 1st of 3 pools. This was absolutely great as we didn’t have to go far to go to get to everything. The apartments were clean and spacious and very attractive. The main shopping/restaurant/bar complex was only a 5/10 min walk away en route to the beach also. The beach itself is lovely, very wide not too deep from front to back and great for the kids. You could get sat up right at the front besides the very warm sea to dip in and out of at your leisure. It did get busy nearer mid day but we did go at the height of the season at the beginning of August. I personally found it too hot late afternoon to do the things I would like but my partner loved it. I didn’t want to go anywhere where I would feel like a fish out of water so at Son Bou I felt I made the right choice.
My five year old son loved the mini fairground open in the evening. It had lots of bouncy castles {all for one ticket for 10 mins play} and also trampolines ,motorbikes and a roundabout with various different vehicles. These were all available for a ticket at either 2 euros each or six rides for 5 euros etc.
We went regularly to a restaurant called Las Dunas as the menus were extremely clear in your chosen language and the food was superb and well presented and cooked {too many served with chips unless you requested different though} Staff were very welcoming and spoke wonderful English. Restaurants/bars certainly were aplenty.
We found a handful of ATM’s around as we chose to use a travel money card loaded with euros {3euros charge for each transaction}. Loads of other cards were also acceptable. We didn’t try using our card in any business’s just the ATM’s for cash.
We had hired a car for the week instead of airport transfers, and were surprised to find we had a free upgrade from an economy 3door to a brand new 5door Astra! As we felt as we had hired the car we needed to explore this wonderful island we didn’t get to discover Son Bou in the depth we would have liked. Driving around was quite easy {especially with the aircon on}, it was only when you drive to the main towns like Mahon and Ciutadella traffic got busier. We found Cala Santa Galdana, Cala en Bosch and Cala en Porter extremely worth a look.
The only downside to our holiday was when we arrived. Our flight had been delayed by 4 hours so we landed at around 10-15pm only to find the Son Bou Gardens reception closed at 10pm. The first choice reps at the airport didn’t inform us of this, simply directing us to the car rental counter and then we were on our own. We eventually found our way to Son Bou Gardens reception at nearly midnight as we didn’t know where it was, then we had to ring the out of hours phone number displayed. I couldn’t get a response so we were just going back to sleep in the car when a man turned up to give us our keys, what a relief that was! We were that excited to start our holiday I didn’t think I needed to ask on where the reception was etc I’ve always had directions/instructions specifically given before!
All photos we’ve seen of Menorca and Son Bou right down to the apartments are extremely accurately represented.

we have just returned from a fortnight at the Son Bou Gardens. This is a lovely resort, particularly if you stay in Zone 3 which we did. We were right in front of the pool and could watch the entertainment every evening from our balcony. Zone 3 is only a 3-4 minute walk from the shops, bars and restaurants. There is a very good bakery on site and a reasonable supermarket, although if you have a car go to the two big supermarkets in Mahon, 15 mins drive away and much more choice and better prices. The best bar without doubt is the Bou Hai in the shopping centre. They do fantastic cocktails there - the Coco Loco is a must try! The restaurants in resort are quite expensive compared to elswhere on the island. If you have a car and visit Ciutadella then try the tapas bars; they are good and cheap. The accommodation was good and clean if a little tired, the beds were reasonably comfortable, and you get what you pay for; if you want 5 star then you have to pay for 5 star! One word of warning; this resort is totally family focused and whilst this is great for some for couples it is probably not the best choice. We did have quite a bit of noise at night from some families, but the security people keep an eye on this and were good at quietening things down when they got a bit over the top. The beach is very close and is probably one of the best beaches on the island. Do watch out for the nudists at the far end (opposite end to the Sol Hotels) otherwise you can get a bit of a surprise! All in all a very good holiday with very good facilities.

Booked our first ever holiday completely online with a certain website which we were a bit dubious about at first, until we realised it had saved us about £1000 compared to the High Street travel agents.

Everything went swimmingly though, from the airport transfer to checking in, and it turned out to be a great holiday.

Stayed at the Son Bou Gardens in Son Bou (also known as the San Jaime complex) which is a complex of approximately 5 'zones' which stretches almost the full length of Son Bou beach.

The central reception area is in the main town on the top road, which can be a bit akward if you've got wheelchairs or pushchairs as it could be approximately 1km to your room.

The rooms are clean spacious and basic (We were in Zone 3) and are cleaned on a regular basis (probably 4 times a week) and had a microwave and huge fridge.

Entertainment on site was great, the choice of two pools (with water slides next to one, about 2 Euros for 2 rides), a couple of restaurants and supermarket, bakery, car hire, scuba class. The evening entertainment consisted of tribute acts, which seemed to do the rounds around the Son Bou bars, although the quality of them were really good - especially Queen, Bee Gees, Robbie Williams, Blues Brothers along with the more bizarre (but just as good) Beijing Acrobats and a Lord of the Dance (?) tribute act. Don't put your kids near the front of the stage for that one - the Michael Flatley charcter decided to improve the height of his leaps by going commando under his tights.....

We did get a car as well so we managed to get to Mahon, Ciutadella and the Calas etc.

Now for the down side - the food was nothing special. No matter which restaurant or bar we ate in, we almost always came out feeling disappointed. We do like to eat the traditional dishes wherever possible but ended up eating Pizza and Paella from the restaurant next to the Chinese on the front.

There also wasn't a great deal for the kids to do. OK, if they're happy swimming about, then they're spoilt for choice with the pools on site, however if you've no car, the only other kiddie-themed thing in Son Bou is the little fun park with inflatables, mini dodgems, trampolines etc. which cost about 10 euros for 12 tickets.

We did have the World Cup on at the time as well, which seemed to perk everybody up (we left just after the England v Paraguay game) but a great atmosphere in the British Bar on the top road near reception!

Overall a good holiday though, but try and get a car to explore if you're going for two weeks.

Stayed at Son Bou Gardens with first choice. 2 bed apartment is very spacious, 2 large balconies front and back. Nice and clean on arrival. lots of restaurants to chose from to eat , 3/4 supermarkets, duty free perfume shop and duty free tobaconists. Great swimming pools although one of the pools charges for sunbeds 4 euros 50 for the day. Beach is beautiful and goes on for ever. Day trips books with First Choice were expensive around 16 euros per adult more than if you book with a local excursion operator within Son Bou. Children 12 and over are charged adult prices!!! for trips with First Choice. Would definately return to Son Bou in the future and stay at Son Bou Gardens.